rest; "it is really.
I wouldn't be at all surprised as how that's my brother Sam I haven't
heerd on for this many a year, or seed, although he's a seafarin' man
like myself, an' I oughter to 'ave run across his jib afore now. Depend
on it, Rawlings, that the reason the boy stuck to me so when he hadn't
got his wits, and came for to rescue me aboard the _Susan Jane_, and
arterwards, was on account of my likeness to Sam."

And as nobody could say him nay, it may be mentioned here that that was
Seth's fervent belief ever after.

The last recollection that Frank had of the ship and the mutineers was
of an orgie on board the _Dragon King_ in the height of a storm, and of
one of the murderous villains finding out his retreat in the foretop,
where the sailor who protected him lashed him to the rigging, so that he
could not tumble on deck if he should fall asleep. He remembered a man
with gleaming eyes and great white teeth swearing at him, and making a
cut at him with a drawn sword. After that, all was a complete blank to
him till he had just now opened his eyes and recognised Ernest.

"An' yer don't recollect being picked up at sea an' taken aboard the
_Susan Jane_, and brought here, nor nuthin'?" inquired Seth.

"Nothing whatever," said Frank, who showed himself to be a remarkably
intelligent boy now that he had recovered his senses. "I don't remember
anything that happened in the interval."

"Waal, that is curious," observed Seth.

That was all the story that Frank Lester could tell of the mutiny on
board the _Dragon King_, and his wonderful preservation.

All the mutineers, and some of their victims too most probably, met
their final doom shortly afterwards in the storm that had dismasted the
ship, leaving it to float derelict over the surface of the ocean; all
but the three whose corpses the visiting party from the _Susan Jane_ had
noticed on the submerged deck. These must have survived the tempest
only to perish finally from each other's murderous passions, after
having lingered on in a state of semi-starvation possibly--although
Frank said that the desperadoes from the diamond fields, who were the
ringleaders on board, were originally the most attenuated,
starved-looking mortals he had ever seen in his life.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

HOMEWARD-BOUND.

The work at the mine went on steadily. The "pocket" was cleared of the
quartz it contained, and the whole, amounting to two hundred and fifty